Author: ehuelsmann Date: Sat Jan 28 16:52:58 2006 New Revision: 4

Modified: usocket/trunk/doc/design.txt (contents, props changed) Log: Update design document.

Modified: usocket/trunk/doc/design.txt ============================================================================== --- usocket/trunk/doc/design.txt (original) +++ usocket/trunk/doc/design.txt Sat Jan 28 16:52:58 2006 @@ -1,19 +1,72 @@

-*- text -*-

+$Id$ + + usocket: Universal sockets library ==================================

Contents ========

+ * Motivation + * Design goal + * Functional requirements + + + + +Motivation +========== + +There are 2 other portability sockets packages [that I know of] +out there:

+ 1) trivial-sockets + 2) acl-compat (which is a *lot* broader, but contains sockets too)

+The first misses some functionality which is fundamental when +the requirements stop being 'trivial', such as finding out the +addresses of either side connected to the tcp/ip stream. + +The second, being a complete compatibility library for Allegro, +contains much more than only sockets. Next to that, as the docs +say, is it mainly directed at providing the functionality required +to port portable-allegroserve - meaning it may be (very) incomplete +on some platforms. + +So, that's why I decided to inherit Erik Enge's project to build +a library with the intention to provide portability code in only +1 area of programming, targeted at 'not so trivial' programming. + +Also, I need this library to extend cl-irc with full DCC functionality. + + Design goal ===========

-To provide a portable socket interface for as many implementations as -possible, while keeping the portability layer as thin as possible. +To provide a portable TCP/IP socket interface for as many +implementations as possible, while keeping the portability layer +as thin as possible. + + + +Functional requirements +======================= + +The interface provided should allow: + - 'client'/active sockets + - 'server'/listening sockets + - retrieve IP addresses/ports for both sides of the connection + - provide the usual stream methods to operate on the connection stream + (not necessarily the socket itself; maybe a socket slot too) + +Several relevant support functionalities will have to be provided too: + - long <-> quad-vector operators + - quad-vector <-> string operators + - hostname <-> quad-vector operators (hostname resolution) +

Minimally, I'd like to support: - SBCL